What Does Proverbs 6:30 Mean in the King James?
Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word translated “satisfy” means “fill,” and its object is the nefesh, the living self whose hunger remains visible inside the theft.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the theft and the hunger in the same sentence, so the act does not erase the need beneath it. “Satisfy his soul” is “fill his nefesh,” the living self; bodily hunger belongs inside the moral picture. It makes room for understanding without calling the theft harmless.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every theft springs from greed: this one is named as an attempt to fill the living self when hunger is pressing.
THE ROOT
נֶפֶשׁ
nephesh
GROWS FROM
נפש
n-p-sh
the living self, life, appetite
“soul” in this verse is nephesh. The text says the thief fills his nephesh, the living self, not an abstract inner part separate from life. The same word can name both a living being and appetite, so the hunger here belongs to the person’s living, bodily need.
ALSO GROWS
nephesh chayyah: living being, living soul (Genesis 2:7)
נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה
The same word names a living creature, placing this hunger in embodied life.
baʿal nephesh: a person given to appetite (Proverbs 23:2)
בַּעַל נֶפֶשׁ
Here nefesh names appetite directly, revealing the bodily need carried by “his soul” in this verse.
לְמַלֵּא
lemalle
GROWS FROM
מלא
m-l-ʾ
to fill, be full
The phrase rendered “satisfy his soul” is literally “fill his nefesh.” That makes satisfaction a concrete filling of a need in the living self, rather than a vague inner feeling.
ALSO GROWS
male: to be full, to fill
מָלֵא
This verb names the movement toward fullness that the hungry person seeks.
melō: fullness, abundance
מְלֹא
This noun carries the root’s focus on fullness, clarifying what “satisfy” means here: filling what hunger has left empty.
THE PATTERN
Scripture recognizes hunger as a real need that shapes how an act is judged, while leaving room for accountability.
But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?THE THREAD
For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.Psalm 107:9 uses נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh, living soul) for both the longing and hungry person, and מלא (male, to fill) for what meets that need. It opens Proverbs’ phrase “fill his nephesh” onto a wider picture: the hungry living self can be filled with goodness.
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